Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Solid chunk that 500k.
The timing is not coincidence imho. Q2 results are out before month end and Ratesetter deal looking on shaky legs.
Did he have to put skin in the game to get the big shareholders onboard with the Ratesetter strategy?
One thing is clear, forget about JP Morgan or any takeover here. He wouldnt be permitted to buy if there were any unofficial talks. Also forget imminent FCA resolution also.
Shorters will likely double down on their conviction now.
Metro is a only passenger in this covid and Brexit ride. Little control over its destiny.
Can see what you mean.
But since then, other companies like Roche for example have caught up with their own testing products.
If this was an acquisition of intellectual property then the high valuations are possible. But Roche is simply looking for additional factory capacity, NCYT is too small.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-made-america-s-biggest-banks-even-bigger-11587639602
No point attracting new deposits and creating the interst paying liability when there are few attractive ways to earn a higher return and make a margin. So they have tp cut rates to preserve margins.
The big banks however will have seen a flood of deposits into current accounts earning 0% interest. They'll be smiling.
Pace of deposit growth slowed dramatically in Q1, and they said it was only 'stable' in April. Hardly sounds like a flood of deposits comong in.
What has changed between April and June to suddenly drive inflows of deposits to Metro that it is having to fight them away??
Just making an objective assessment of the facts.
Its clear Shorts are increasingly confident of a bad FCA finding. Such a finding will open the flood gates to fines and class action lawsuits which could devastate the equity holders.
The bank will be fine and will carry on with regulators help / protection. But equity investors could see carnage.
And with the latest change at the top of the FCA taking effect from September this year, a resolution may now not come until Q2 2021 given covid and imminent Brexit disruptions.
Those are the objective picture, and can explain the shorting activity here.
Think about it, who holds 4.4% of a company's issued share capital as short bet and keeps increasing despite a 95% SP collapse already???? A VERY confident and well informed shorter imho.
Absolutely no one will touch this via acquisition for many reasons.
Huge risk of embarassment through spike in bad debts, adverse FCA ruling, potential liabilities from the current US class action lawsuits, poor PR of making job cuts in middle of a global pandemic etc etc
Whatever any acquirer hopes to gain could be lost very quickly many times over!
Card Factory: £450m revenue vs. £400m Metro
Card Factory: 1000 stores vs. around 77 Metro
Card Factory: 10,000 employees vs. 2,800 Metro
Card Factory: Selling cheap paper cards vs. up to 7 figure mortgage offerings at Metro
How in hell does Card Factory generate substantially more profits than Metro????
In fact Metro is heavily loss making. While in a disastrous year which saw their CEO sacked yesterday, Card Factory delivered £67m pre tax profit.
Thete's a hell of lot more to Metro's issues than is visible on the surface imho.
FTSE up 1.75% and Metro down 1.1% at 109p.
Sub £1 for sure next week.
Potential Covid-19 developments in US over weekend could see sharp sell offs next week across indicies .
I WOULD want to be out of this over the weekend.
Market is only concerned with making money, doesnt give a damn about fair pricing.
Unfortunately for Metro, market doesnt have any confidence in its ability to sustain a rally and make them money.
So this is the 'market' equilibrium price and its correct by definition.
SP is still more likely to collapse than rise sharply down at these levels.
Stan Chart: turnaround failed, no shareholder mutiny. Batclays: turnaround stalled: no shareholder mutiny besides 5% Bramson. HSBC: turnarounds failed, no shareholder mutiny. RBS: turnaround somewhat successful, but SP at rock bottom, no shareholder mutiny. Lloyds: etc etc
A pattern emerges.
Nothing happens , shareholders either sell up or shut up effectively. Management rule the roost
The day investors who average at £10+ are still the majority holders here.
A cut price takeout at say £3/£4 wont see the light of day.
Those day 1 holders will back management's 4 to 5 year turnaround story than crystallise huge losses now.
Management have assured them there'll be no more equity raise requests.
So they just have to put the shares in bottom drawer and come back in 5 tears.
New management look like they want a chance to try a turnaround story.
Cant see any sign of them being receptive to or preparing for o a takeout at all.
It wont happen. Speculation has been running for more than 1 year and it has never looked more unlikely.
Moving backwards instead
This has to be the worst market backdrop in living memory.
US has fired all its big guns and now looks almost inevitable to be back into lockdown, erasing all those efforts.
Incredibly scary given knock on impacts for the markets.
No time to be jumping into risky assets imo